RoboCup 2008 Day Three, Four

• Scrambled eggs with pork today. So it was just bread and boiled eggs for us.
• Had to go to the Expo Center early today for our presentation.
• All the presentations went well, very nice ideas.
• I feel Professor Takahashi's idea deserves the Aladdin Prize, will have to wait till Sunday to see who wins.
• Met the team from Jacobs University from Bremen. They had implemented a flood simulator. Their team leader, Narunas (I believe that is the spelling) - a Lithuanian and a Top Coder, who apparently started working on it last month thereby putting us to shame (Not that we put in our 100% in the first place) - is a pretty cool guy. Then we met Nour, an Egyptian, from the same team and exchanged contacts.
  
• We will get to work together in the near future, sounds very exciting!
• Infrastructure competition was not received with the warmth that we were expecting. First of all, the stupid dance programs were creating a lot of disturbance and we could not really hear what the presenter had to say. No one really bothered about the complaints made by the volunteers, who tried their best. Finally we got into a small room which was OK. Also, all the agent teams were supposed to come to our presentations to see what progress was being made, etc. However, only a few team leaders showed up. They are the ones who decide which projects wins. None of them even came to see the demos after the presentations. They were too busy tweaking their own codes. We found this a bit discouraging. Yaso did tell us that this would happen. But then Sir had a point. There had been no significant changes in the server for quite some time now, so the agents teams had also become very passive about it. Hope to create a disturbance with the launch of our DDRRS in a few months :)
• Simulation in general, as in Rescue and Soccer, did not get enough audience. People did not find the screens on which the games were projected, that interesting. True, even we got a bit bored after the second day, just watching the same old screen.
  
• New measures have to be taken in making the event more interesting. Made some notes on that too.
• Made a couple of rounds around other leagues. The small, wheeled robots are very cool. Good control, aim and speed. Very nice passing. The rest have become very boring now. 1 week is really long for such things. From next time onwards, IF there is a next time, I guess I will head out for "tourism" after the third day.
  
• Homesickness is another thing that is killing me! Just two more days and I will get back to my home, sweet home :). Tried calling amma on the day we arrived. Unfortunately they did not have calling cards for India. Excellent!
• Went to a Chinese restaurant yesterday. After some sign language, we finally got them to understand that we wanted vegetarian food. The waiter pointed to some rice rolls. I was trying so hard to control my laughter! He then told us that he would prepare the usual food minus the meat. Nice! The pizza, fried rice and spaghetti turned out to be good. The rice was different, fat and sticky grains but good.
• On the way, we saw a worker holding out 3 dead tortoises for sale. Come to think of it, those dead tortoises were the first animals, other than humans, we got to see in China. And today we came across a pet store, LOL. I saw an Alsatian waiting in its cage to be bought by someone. Little does it know where it will finally end up :P. Did not come across any stray dogs in China, is the recent "ban" on dog meat related to this in some manner? :P
• The seats in the auditorium are very comfortable for sleeping. There is good WLAN reception, so chatting is pretty comfortable too. The dim lights and the speaker's boring voice is enough to make one go into a deep sleep, as was the case with half the people in the room. The keynote address was very interesting.
• Our paper got selected as a Poster in the Symposium and yesterday was our turn. They had the poster session running during dinner. Who the hell came up with that idea? As expected, people just went round the buffet table, filled their plates and went back to their respective seats. We waited for about ten minutes and then left to get some food. We spent about forty minutes waiting for someone to show up. But looking at the rate at which new dishes were being put up (formula: {pork, beef}{vegetables}* minus {spices}) it was clear that no one will ever show up.
• Anyway, a very funny thing happened during the dinner at the Symposium. We could not find any dishes that "we" could eat. So we just asked one of the volunteers if there was any vegetarian food. This was how is went:

Us: Ni Hao! Is there any vegetarian food here?
Volunteer: Vegetarian? Is that Halal?
Us: No, vegetarian. Not Halal
Volunteer (She put a really confused look on her face): Uhh, what is vegetarian? Is that Halal? (I am not able to recollect the exact pronunciations :P)
Us: No MEAT. Only vegetables.
Volunteer (After consulting another volunteer): Sorry, no vegetarian. We have Halal though.

WTF.

• We finally got to eat some french fries with popcorn chicken, chicken and macaroni salad with some curry made with corn. No second helpings, because those were the only chicken dishes available. Had some pieces of watermelon after that, awesome (Yes, even watermelon feels awesome now :D).
  

• One thing that is very noticeable in China is the hospitality provided by its people. Apparently it is common only in Mainland China (NO, not MLC - Banjara Hills :D). The people try their best to help others out, which is very nice.
• Went to an Indian restaurant today, Southern Cross. Had some Dal, mixed vegetable curry, naans and of course, biryani! Tasted good, given the fact that we had been living on biscuits and chips for the past three days. We finally got to see what a busy place as in a market looked like. The dormitory and Expo Center are very far away from the main city. So it is very difficult to go out.
• Trip to The Great Wall is out, because there is not much time and Beijing is more than a thousand kilometers away. However, we will be going to the local sightseeing tour. And then there is a grand banquet dinner in the evening. Really looking forward to that, especially after the amount of hype Yaso has created :D.
• Have to leave for the airport on Sunday itself because our flight is at 0800Hrs on Monday and the first bus to the airport leaves at 0730Hrs. =((